Baby Instincts (Part 2)

Parents have long known of the abilities of babies that scientists are just now revealing. It’s good to know that your instincts were not far off. It’s true: babies are a good judge of character, they do naturally prefer beautiful faces, and they have a favorite color early on. There are other things that scientists have discovered that parents might not have known, such as that they are naturally color blind when it comes to race but are quite sensitive to a difference of hue. The most striking discoveries include that babies actually know how to count and they can hold their breath and swim instinctively.

Researchers at Yale University found that babies could actually prefer a helpful person over others. The study used babies that were 6-10 months old to see if they could tell the difference between helpful and unhelpful puppets, even when the help did not effect the baby in any way. The babies unanimously chose the puppet that helped another puppet up a hill. Scientists used a colorful wooden block with plastic “googly” eyes as the main character and showed two scenes to the babies - one where a helpful puppet assisted the block in getting up the hill and another where a puppet pushed the block down the hill. After the show, babies were given the option of which puppet they wanted and nearly all of them went for the helpful one. When the researchers removed the eyes from the puppets, the reaction was not as strong, which scientists say indicates that the babies identified them as characters. The experiment continued but this time, the show featured each puppet befriending the block. Babies were more engaged when the block made friends with the unhelpful puppet, as if they were shocked. The study suggests that babies are able to make sophisticated decisions based on observing behavior. Scientists suggest that this may be hardwired in babies so that they can choose the most beneficial environment to thrive in, where the positive, more helpful influences would be.

Babies love to look at human faces and they actually have an incredible ability to tell faces apart. A study of babies at six months revealed an ability to differentiate between the faces of monkeys, a feat that adults aren’t capable of. Unfortunately, when the babies got to be nine months old, they could differentiate between human faces but they were no longer adept at the lesser-seen monkey faces. This study suggests that we develop an ability to differentiate between faces of unfamiliar races very early in life and lose that ability as time goes on, depending on our exposure to those races. 

Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? It’s been found that babies tend to look at beautiful faces more than any other. In fact, one study found that babies looked at attractive faces about 80% more than others, indicating that a sense of beauty could be instinctive.

Why is it always blue for boys and pink for girls? One study found that babies develop a preference for colors early in life, so look out for signs of your baby’s favorite. The study found that babies can distinguish between colors and they prefer primary colors like blue, red, orange and purple. They seemed to dislike grey and brown consistently, even babies from cultures that don’t emphasize primary colors as much as the United States. When shown different shades of blue, they were just as bored as they were when exposed to the first shade of blue. This means that they actually recognize the similar hue, so painting the nursery with a bright blue might not get the baby any more excited than if you painted it with “baby blue.”

You may have struggled in algebra but you were actually born to do math. Babies are naturally able to differentiate between the numbers of things. MRI imaging showed the area of the brain related to counting light up when babies were introduced to changing numbers of things, but they also tended to look longer when suddenly presented with a different number of items than they had seen before. This finding is strange because as many of us can say, math definitely did not seem to come naturally.

Your baby is also a natural born swimmer, but only until approximately 16 months of age. Babies have a diving reflex that kicks in under water so that they instantly seal off their lungs and don’t inhale water. This enables babies to naturally hold their breath for long periods. They are also naturally buoyant and will gracefully adopt a swimming position as soon as they are in the water. Some parents are taking advantage of this reflex to better acquaint their babies to water and prevent the panic that can cause drowning in small children.

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The idea that this baby is totally dependant on you can be wearisome, but as scientists are finding, these little people actually have some built-in life skills that can help put your mind at ease. You just might find that your baby can judge character better than you and when Uncle Mike tries playing card tricks when your baby is at the table, you’ll know by her reaction that he pulled an extra card out of his sleeve. 

Have you witnessed some of these instincts in your little one?


Photo Credit: Immanuel Giel

Babies Prefer Helpful To Unhelpful Social Types [MNT]

Teaching your baby to swim [babyworld]

Neural Basis Of 'Number Sense' In Young Infants [ScienceDaily]

Yale Study Reinforces Theory that Babies Can Count [YaleNews]

Babies 'have favourite colours' [BBC]

Study Suggests Infants "Tune In" To Familiar Face Groups [ScienceDaily]

Newborns prefer beautiful faces [BBC]

Babies Renounce Racial Profiling [Inkling]

Baby got math [TheAllINeed]

HUMAN BABIES or INFANTS [SolarNavigator]

The Baby Lab [NewAmericaFoundation]

Human Instinct TV Programmes [BBC]